Conventional bed skirts or dust ruffles comprise a skirt that is attached to the outer periphery of a mattress or a box spring of a bed. The bed skirt typically depends from the box spring and covers the sides of the box spring and the space between the floor and the box spring to provide a decorative appearance to the bed ensemble.
The conventional bed skirt is typically formed integral with a fitted bed sheet. The fitted sheet portion covers a top surface and sides of the box spring while the bed skirt material depends from the sheet and extends downward toward the floor. In order to install or remove the conventional bed skirt, a user must remove a mattress; position the fitted bed sheet with the bed skirt over the box spring; and return the mattress back in position on top of the box spring. The difficulty of removing and repositioning the mattress causes some individuals to forego employing a bed skirt; to seldom remove the bed skirt for cleaning; or seldom change the bed skirt to alter the decorative appearance of the bed ensemble.
Other bed skirts have sought to provide a bed skirt that eliminates the requirement of removing the mattress to install and/or remove the bed skirt. The other bed skirts have employed a “tucking method” that requires a portion of the bed skirt to be inserted between the mattress and the box spring. Elastic members or other fastening members have been combined with the “tucking method” to facilitate the positioning and securing of the bed skirt in respect of the box spring, examples of which are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,638,562 to Masoncup and U.S. Pat. No. 6,035,469 to Schrougham. This type of bed skirt still requires some lifting of the mattress during the tucking operation and makes it difficult to create an even hang of the bed skirt from the box spring.
Other bed skirts employ a fastener such as a snap or a hook and loop tape to attach the bed skirt to a fitted member or a fitted sheet placed over the mattress or box spring. Examples of this type of bed skirt are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,763,875 to Piontkowski and U.S. Patent Application No. 2007/0022534 of Richards. However, the fasteners detract from the esthetic appearance of the bed skirt and typically cause one side of the bed skirt to have an appearance that is unacceptable for facing outwardly from the bed.
It would be desirable to have a reversible bed skirt adapted to facilitate the attachment of the bed skirt to and the removal of the bed skirt from a bed, and to provide the bed skirt with two decorative sides for selectively facing outwardly from the bed.